


No More Fires

by StrangestAeon



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ancient Rome, Angels, Conversations, Demons, Devotion, Feelings, Fire, Friendship, Garden of Eden, Gen, Guilt, Healing, Honesty, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Memory, Misunderstandings, Other, Self-Esteem Issues, Slight Mention of Indoctrination, Suicidal Thoughts, present day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 02:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20400073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangestAeon/pseuds/StrangestAeon
Summary: “Would you ever want to be an angel again?”“Huh?” Crowley cracked open one serpentine eye looking over Aziraphale in astonishment, “What brought this on?”“I’m just wondering, if you could...” Aziraphale stammered, “I mean, if you would want to ever be an angel again?”Crowley pondered.His mind awash in fire.





	1. “Would you ever want to be an angel again?”

“Would you ever want to be an angel again.”

“Huh?” Crowley cracked open one serpentine eye looking over Aziraphale in astonishment, “What brought this on?”  
  
“I’m just wondering if you could...” Aziraphale stammered, “I mean, if you would _want_ to ever be an angel again?”  
  
Crowley pondered.  
  
His mind awash with fire.  
  


* * *

  
The problem with immortality is sometimes you had the same conversations over again. Time is just so long that you forget the little moments. There was no helping it really- sometimes you simply had to circle back to really get an idea to stick. 

As it was, Aziraphale had asked this exact question twice times before they saw each other in Rome. 

The first time Crowley had laughed in his face and then ignored his messages for six years out of spite, convinced this was the beginning of some asinine conversion plot. 

_You aren't good enough ._

_You are bad._

_Evil_ _._

_Corrupted._

_Vile._  
  
_ Yeah, well, I'll show him,_ Crowley had promised emptily.   
  
The second time he just shrugged and said “no” offhandedly. It was an impossible thing, right? No one was ever risen. It wasn’t worth thinking about.

_Would you want to be an angel again? _The '_with me?_' Had gone unsaid. As did the, '_Wouldn't it be great if we could be together? For real...'_

The answer was of course _yes_, but again, it was impossible and the reality of impossible things was that they _hurt.  
  
_

* * *

  
The third and latest time is in the wake of the crucifixion.

_All sins forgiven, maybe that meant his as well? _

The idea left Crowley feeling a little numb. 

_What did forgiveness really mean? _He never actually felt sorry about being what he was only who.

Aziraphale nudged him, Nero's pilfered wine spilling all over him, “So- would you ever want to be an angel again?” 

“No.” Crowley whispered voice coarse. 

“Why?” The angel asked, but it wasn’t malicious- just genuinely curious. 

He tried to look through Aziraphale's eyes. See himself in their reflection. 

It really must seem so odd, demons, after all had such broken and torn bodies- Cursed and cut off from the holy host. It must seem like choosing a deformity over whole and hale skin.

He sighed.

Now, Crowley could have given a myriad of Crowley-ish answers. Going on about _black leather_ and _stylishness_, but instead he decided that he was_ tired_, Rome was about to burn and it was _only_ Aziraphale.

So, he just said the truth.  
  
“I don’t have to kill as many people as a demon.” 

Aziraphale started as if guilty about the what he was sent here to do. Then he made a sad little strangled noise, his mind thinking back to the flood, wars, and to the son of God who had bled out in agony right in front of them, “I-I suppose that’s accurate.”  
  
They both drank together quietly after that.   
  
As an angel, Crowley recalled, he had always been deathly afraid of fire. He wondered now if Aziraphale was the same. The angel with a flaming sword who gave it away- the arsonist of Rome who would never light a candle.  
  
Doesn't matter what he did, not really, it would find a way to implode all on it's own.

"Suppose nothing changes." He murmurs looking out at a skyline that would not be there tomorrow.   
  
Burned away like so many charred feathers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: God's kill count is 227,037% higher than Satan's.
> 
> Fun Fact II: Nero himself blamed the fire on an obscure new Jewish religious sect called the Christians, whom he indiscriminately and mercilessly crucified.


	2. "How does the Fall happen?"

  
“Do you remember heaven?” Aziraphale asks Crowley one day.

“Isn’t it a bit rude to ask that, mate?”  
  
“Oh! Is it? I’m dreadfully sorry… I didn’t realize.”   
  
“Nah, it’s okay. You’re just curious aren’t you?”   
  
“Well yes, kind of.”

Crowley cracked a smile, that was fake in every way, “That’sss how they get you.”

Questions are _addicting. _

_If you can ask little questions who is to say you can’t build up to questioning God?_

“Bessst forget it, Angel.”  
  


* * *

  
In the beginning, before _the Arrangement, _Crowley had an awful habit of making Aziraphale worry about suddenly sprouting corrupted feathers.

None had ever materialized. 

Crowley stopped making him scared sometime after the fourteenth century. When the mounting dead bodies drive them both to drink to the point of near-discorporation. It was a rare moment of vulnerability, amid the foul scent of death and putrid air that Aziraphale had confessed.

What he says amounts to: _ I’m different. I’m afraid. _ What Crowley hears is: _ I don’t want to be like you._

_Ofcourseofcourseofcourse_ the demon thinks in a tangled heap. The teasing had not meant to awaken existential dread, but here they both were, their own wounds raw and open.

It sobers Crowley up immediately.

“You aren’t _Falling_, Aziraphale.” Crowley says tiredly in response.

“How can you be sure?” 

A moment of strangled quiet passes between them.

“Do you want to know what caused me to Fall?”

“You asked too many questions… you told me that before.”

“It wasn’t _just_ questions, Angel.”

“You...remember it?” Aziraphale frowned hazily. This was starting to feel like a real secret. Something that would get one of them put down for treason. 

Crowley hesitantly nods.   
  


* * *

  
  
Memory was a funny thing for both angels and demons. 

Part of it was that they existed on so many planes over such a long period of time. It is impossible to keep all your memories together all at once without at least some disorganization.

The other more sinister part of it, was that they were not physically_ allowed_ to remember some things.

A lot of the details around the civil war in Heaven, for example, had been lost or taken. _Redacted._

Though interestingly enough, the pair would discover- _ not necessarily the same ones.  
  
_

* * *

  
Crowley bites out a laugh, bitterness coating is attempt at nonchalance, “Of course, Angel. Bit odd to wake up in a pool of sulfur otherwise. It would be a rather disquieting start to a Tuesday, if you ask me.”

There was something hysterical entering Crowley’s movements. A foreign discomfort that even the very drunk Aziraphale notices.

_ Is he afraid? Is this too much_? The angel tries to give the demon an out. Shifting and finally sobering he says, “They don’t tell angels, you know. That was something that was taken.”

_Oh my dear boy, they could kill you. _ Aziraphale’s human heart forgets to beat at the thought of Crowley confessing something so dangerous. 

“It’s-It’s forbidden.” He chokes out finally, not understanding Crowley's measured silence, _you don't have to tell me! _

“Of course it was,” There is anger there, mired in bitterness, “ I couldn’t imagine they would want to give any one any more_ ideas _.” He pushes back long dark hair, “But, I'll tell _you_, if you are okay with the forbidden knowledge.”

The horrible thing is that Aziraphale absolutely does want him to tell him. He would love to end his torment and worry- To just _know_ instead of believing blindly- But it’s _ineffable _ and he _ can’t. _

He’s not ready. 

Beyond that though, he doesn’t want to put Crowley in any more danger than he already is.

_I'm not worth it._

“No, I better not.” Aziraphale tells him, thinking of the apple and the illogical intricacies of Falling twice.

Crowley straightens his back, though the nervousness in his movements don’t stop. He opens his mouth and closes it a few times before nodding. The forked tongue and snake fangs have conspicuously appeared. 

"Of courssse, you wouldn't be a very good angel if you accepted ssecrets from the ssserpent, would you?"

_Oh no, now I've gone and done it! _Aziraphale thinks because as thick as he can be sometimes he always knows when he has disappointed Crowley. Broken his heart in some strange way, and now Crowley was trying to chase Aziraphale away.

_Oh, Crowley, it's not because of what you are that I can't say yes_, Aziraphale wants to assure, but doesn't because it's a lie. He _is_ in an incredible amount of danger because of what he is- What he means to Aziraphale.

"No." He mutters on rote.

Telling secrets of the highest order would surely just be fuel on the fire. _Crowley must know that!_ But maybe he doesn't because in that moment the poor demon just looks so wretched and disappointed that Aziraphale almost takes it back and begs him for the truth.

It’s clear that Crowley wants to confess to him, whatever the awful secret is- but before Aziraphale can form the words to renege, Crowley is speaking again. His fangs back to normal human size.

“Of course, stupid of me to try to temp you, but you really don’t have anything to fear. I promise, Angel.”

He’s closed off now, but still friendly and warm. He offers the angel another cup of wine.

Aziraphale gifts him a watery smile in return.

“Thank you.” He breaths and they both continue to drink until the century is over.

* * *

It’s only after the _Apocalypse-That-Wasn’t_ and Aziraphale is still an angel, _somehow_\- after all of that, that he thinks to ask Crowley again.

* * *

“Crowley?”

“Hmm, yeah, Angel?” The demon says lazily, almost dozing. It was one of those perfect summer afternoons, where the two of them had gone for dinner and had now slipped back to the book shop, because neither had felt ready to be alone.

It’s about as far from the fourteenth century as one can get. 

“How does the Fall happen?” 

Crowley almost chokes and Aziraphale feels foolish suddenly for bringing it up without preamble.

“You aren’t going to Fall.” Crowley says when he regains himself. 

“Yes, I _know_ that, but I want to know the _specifics_, I mean. What do you actually _have_ to do?” 

_ What did you do? _

Crowley is looking at him now, his shades were still on, but Aziraphale could tell there is still a nakedness there- a vulnerability.

“I didn’t think you _wanted_ the forbidden knowledge?”

“I think we established that it wasn’t exactly a bad thing to be able to tell right from wrong.” He puffs out his chest, “Furthermore, it’s not like they can put you through _another_ high treason trial so soon.”

“Hmm… point.”

Crowley lowers his shades now, only a fraction. His burning yellow eyes peek out at Aziraphale, as if searching for something.

Aziraphale hopes he finds it.

_I won't run. What ever the answer,_ Aziraphale finds himself promising. 

Finally, after a small eternity, Crowley swallows and mutters: “You have to betray humanity.”

_ What. _

_Really?_

“But you-”

“I know!” Crowley threw up his hands.

“That’s-” _ That’s the BIG secret? _Aziraphale can’t help it, he laughs. “Crowley. Crowley, my dear boy, you _ saved _ humanity!” He can barely choke out between wheezing. There is some cosmic joke in there somewhere.

“I know- It’s a bit ridiculous.”

“A bit? How can that even be _possible_?”

“I-.” Crowley, for lack of a better word- pouts.

“Th-there where just so awful at first, right? Do you remember? It’s not like I ever _ hated _ them, I just never understood how they were supposed to be_ better_! So, I questioned _ that _ and maybe hung around Lucifer a little more than was strictly _ necessary_.”

Ah, Lucifer- It was hard to think of the great twisted monster below as being God’s most beautiful and favourite creation. 

For the first time, Aziraphale wondered vaguely if the rebellion had been the first act of jealousy. He had always thought that distinction belonged to Cane. But now he wasn’t so sure.

“He used to talk about choices back in the day, you see...”. 

Aziraphale nodded sobering completely now, not really remembering but imagining. 

“He didn’t really _care_ about choices though, of course. I mean, beyond the ‘Not Heaven’ thing. But when Eve ate the apple… I knew- I knew_ why_ in that moment that they _ were _ better. And I had to-”

He cut himself off, but Aziraphale understood.

“Oh, Crowley.”

Emotions began to colour the demon’s voice, “They had a choice, right? They were more real and complete than we could_ ever_ be.”

Sensing that the demon had stopped breathing, Aziraphale took his hand to offer a reassuring squeeze. Crowley abruptly started to exhale.

“I wanted to make choices too, after that.”

“You fell in love with them.” Aziraphale realized.

“I fell in love.” Crowley weakly nodded. 

Something previously dull, became sharp in Aziraphale’s mind as he pieced together something that had always bothered him, “Y-you spoke to me…?”

“Yeah…”

“Even though we were sworn enemies.”

“Yup.”

“I never understood that. The war had just ended and we were eternal, sworn and hated _enemies_... Y-you must have been so frightened.” 

Crowley just shrugged.

“I wanted the choice.”

A choice to live; a choice to speak to someone he had no business speaking to. 

“Well, that was very dangerous! I could have had my sword! My holy fire! I could have killed you!” 

“Nah,” Crowley was the one soothing him now, "I wasn't much afraid of fire after the pit. What's one little match stick of a sword?"

"...That's not right...?"

Aziraphale could not understand why Crowley was missing the point on purpose, was he getting at something? Did he just want to avoid something unsavory? "I could have killed you," he insisted again.

“Acceptable risk. Wanted to see if you would choose not to."

Aziraphale stole a long unflinching gaze at Crowley, wondering about the plan, and ineffability, and if that apple had more than two pairs of bite marks in it. 

How could he have ever forgotten the flavour of something so wonderful?

Deciding it didn’t matter, the angel relaxed his perfectly white wings, “Well, I suppose I made the happiest choice then.”  
  
_And that's a choice I will make gladly every time. _

He moves to chastely kiss Crowley on the forehead. Something the demon happily indulges him in.

It's only after he has later pulled away that a dark, jagged puzzle piece regarding what Crowley had said, or rather- not said, settles in his mind. 

Aziraphale looked at Crowley and frowned.

_Having the choice to live also means having the choice to die. How can it be acceptable to gamble your life to an angel?_

_Willing to sacrifice himself to fire, opening the way to choice... _  
  
It reminded him of another painful memory in Golgotha, though he supposed Crowley would hate the comparison.

Stupidly grateful he had given his fire away, Aziraphale reached down to grip Crowley's cool hand, never wanting to let go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: Some scholars understand the Tree of knowledge story to be about gaining mortality as the tree denotes knowledge of everything and does not necessarily have a moral connotation.


	3. "Hey, what's your name?"

“I’m so sorry!” The snake cries out to the sky until his voice is thick with the weight of all that he has unleashed. 

The silence is only broken by a distant rumble of thunder.

_“I’msosorry.”_ He sobs desperately despite the lack of an answer, “Why do you have to punish them? You should punish _me_!”

But he wouldn’t be punished for this, quite the opposite in fact. Hell would rejoice, a surprisingly stunning victory after a horrid defeat-

The thought of a commendation for something like _this_ made his blood freeze.

_I-I... There is no way out of this is there?_

But that’s not true. He knew that now.

That sweet tartness mixing with venom.

_There’s an angel nearby_. The serpent remembers numbly, as he made his way towards the heat of it with grim determination. Fire once again transforming from fear into cold and calloused comfort.   
  


* * *

  
For Crowley it starts like this:

Crawley, a being who had yet to change his name, meets Eve.

She’s the first human he has ever spoken to, “You are much more charming than I thought you would be.” He tells her, chagrined. She is so beautiful it almost hurts to look at her with his new, unblinking eyes. He wonders vaguely if he might try to change his form like that someday. If he could look half that flawless.

_Legs might be tricky._

“Same to you.” She smiles matching the intensity of his.

“That looks delicious.” Eve says, eyes bright, pointing to the perfectly plump and ripened apple. 

“I suppose it must be,” Crawley nods his snake head, not really knowing what ‘delicious’ was. 

“You should have a bite.” They both say at the same time.

* * *

  
  
For Aziraphale it starts a little differently:

They told Aziraphale- _watch the gate and the tree for an agent of the adversary will come and tempt the humans with evil._

He is given a sword for the task- “Here” they say, “It’s the strongest we have,” and as if to prove that fact, it bursts into holy flames.

Aziraphale gulps. He has seen this kind of sword before, during the _ War. _He had been told that they were all destroyed.

“Yes, but um, there must be some mistake. That’s an angel killer.”

They are unimpressed, “Yes, and...?”

“Well, I didn’t think we killed other angels anymore... do we?”

“Of course not, but they _ aren’t _angels anymore. They are our hereditary enemies and abominations. I mean, didn’t you see what they looked like after the Fall?”

He had.

Aziraphale took the sword. His knuckles white as he entered the garden.

He was ordered to guard, so guard he would, he decided while extending his grace around him, trying to detect any malice. 

The thing is though, that even when the extra snake showed up, with glowing occult eyes-

There was _none.  
  
_

* * *

When Crawly enters Eden, he does so from the dirt and clay that had birthed Adam. 

He was told to cause trouble. 

But the war had only _ just _ ended and Crawley was _tired_.

Absolutely bone wearily shattered. 

_"Throw a wrench into God’s plan.” _They had said as if that wasn’t a frightfully impossible task against an all knowing deity.

_ A whole bloody civil war hadn’t done a thing apparently, so why should he be able to? _

_Nothing__ much matters anyway. Guesss I’ll just look busssy_, Crawley decides slithering through the plants and flowers. 

Only instead of dull nihilism he starts to feel hope.

_It’s beautiful here_, he realizes, and it awakens something in the snake he can’t quite put into words.

_ It’sss familiar_, he settles on with a pang. A lushness instead of scorching magma.

Something lost then, like his halo. 

He doesn’t know exactly_ why_, but the echo of _something_ tells him where to go. He finds himself surging forward, immediately drawn to the tree. 

It looked awfully plain for something so enticing.The serpent cocked his head, the light of it was dazzling. 

\---_“What’s so bad about knowing the difference between right and wrong?”_ An almost memory flashes in his head and he hums.

That tree _is_ special. Everything about it screamed_ important. Notice me!_

“But why?”

Even now he can’t stop asking questions.

_Stupid stupid._

But he supposed the seal was broken. Nothing much they could do to him now.

If he was stuck in a suicide mission, he might as well spend his free time looking for answers if only to satisfy his own squirming curiosity.

* * *

  
“I-I can’t!” Crawley panics. He doesn’t have hands to push Eve’s outstretched offering aside. 

“Why?” She asks gently, but already there is a glow there- A spark of something unrecognizable settling in her that awakens a deep fear within him.

_ Whatareyou whatareyou whatareyou _?

Funny how an unholy monster could think such an ordinary fang-less creature scary.

But he supposes she wasn’t a creature- Not anymore. And, after that gentle smile pulled itself into something more knowing, he wasn’t sure she was so hapless.

“I’ve never eaten anything before.” He protests weakly, unsure if that was even true. 

“But you have been hungry.” She says like it’s a fact. 

Crawley isn’t even thinking of the apple when he utters, almost shamefully, “Yesss.”

* * *

How Crawley gets his answers is this:

He overhears a conversation between God and the most beautiful and shining creature he had ever seen. The angel was so hot and bright, it was like staring directly into a funeral pyre. 

Crowley closed his eyes against the intensity. 

_Free will huh? What's so bad about that?_

* * *

  
“Aziraphale,” God commanded, “You must not let the humans eat from the Tree of Knowledge, lest they will die.”

“Of course.” He acknowledged. 

He wanted desperately to ask about the sword in his hand, but this was the Almighty, so it was all ineffable and there was no point in wondering.

Sullen, he sighed, and made his patrol around the lush plants trying to distract his mind by looking at all the beauty of the animals.

“Wait. That’s not right.” He muttered doing another round to check. 

“1,2,3,4- hmm.” There were too many animals.

And oh, of all the twisted and burnt shapes a demon could possess he was not expecting a beautiful black serpent with glowing eyes. 

_ Hello there, _ Aziraphale wanted to coo. He didn’t though, because the demon snake just looked stricken to the point where sickly fear was coming off him in waves. 

He could feel it.

_ Don’tkillmedon’teatmeIamnothing- _

_ Nothing- _

_ Nothing- _

The fear, tinged with sour resignation, brought back lost days from the war that made Aziraphale freeze. 

_ Would it really be so bad if he pretended not to see the demon? _

The long answer is of course, no. It all works out and the two of them end up dining together at the Ritz in as near a perfect ending two immortals could get.

The short answer though, is yes- _very bad.  
  
_

* * *

  
The apple is taken.

Humanity falls.

And as they do, they take a part of Aziraphale down with them.

* * *

Crawley finds himself in strange positions throughout the garden, trying to catch more glimpses of the beautiful Guardian of the Eastern Gate.

“Why do you think he let me go?” Crawley asks Eve for a tenth time, "He _should_ have destroyed me on the spot."

"Well, why didn't you destroy him? You had the chance didn't you?" She humours him.

"Well, yeah, I guesss but I'm not much of a fighter. Wouldn't ssstand much of a chance really- and the war'sss over and all. Might be bad form to smite someone out of the blue."

"Those sound like excuses."

"Well! I'm-

She was right.

"I talk to him you know. He's cute, and I'm sure you two would get along."

It was such a nice fantasy. To go and just talk to a beautiful angel without fear of repercussion or heavenly fire.

But it was impossible. And Impossible things always hurt.

"-I'm tired, Eve." Crawley confesses. 

Eve shrugged, “Maybe he’s tired too.”

"Angels don't get tired."

"Neither do demons." 

Feeling rather antagonized, Crawley had tried to change subjects, “Why do you love Adam?”

“He was made to be loved by me.” She stifles a laugh, "Are you wondering if this angel is made to love you?"

"No!" Crawley practically balks at the blasphemy, "A guardian like that is made to burn me alive."

"Oh, I get it. Like how _you_ were made to poison him with your great big fangs." She mimes them with her fingers. 

"That'sss... different." Even he could taste the hypocrisy.

"I don't know. Maybe you are special. Maybe he's special. There are lots of special things in this garden."

“I guess.” The snake tilted his head, trying to understand, “So, you only like Adam because he is _special_ then?”

“Oh no, I like him because he’s nice to me.”

The fires of the Hell Pits were allegedly supposed to have burnt the love right out of Crawley. But only seven days out and here he was, unable to stop asking questions about the subject. 

_Whywhywhy. It still doesn't make sense. _

“I should think only an odd creature would design to be nice to a demon.” Crawley huffs, defeated, he must be so twisted to think that not being set on fire constituted in anyway as a form of love.

“Oh, I think all of God’s creatures are odd. Have you met the platypus?” 

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Is it really so hard to believe that you aren’t as alone as you thought? That you aren't the only tired one who sees their opposite as a monster? Adam is my opposite in a fashion, and we were made for each other. Is it so odd then to think that there could be someone out there made for you? Who understands your pain and experiences enough to let you go? To bend the rules just a _little_?”

The answer was _yes_, but Crawley didn’t say that out loud. No one really had the choice, at least not yet.

* * *

After the Fall of Man, Aziraphale is feeling- _Indescribable. _

He_ should _hunt down that serpent and slay him for this transgression. However, instead of being filled with righteous indignation, he is enveloped in a tight cloak of fear.

_ The Fall of Angels was just so awful. _ _All those twisted bodies, and now it was destined to repeat? _

_ Would the humans twist and break into horrific shapes too? _ It seemed almost certain. 

Abruptly he wants to cry, but holds it in. _It won't happen. _

_ Humans are not angels, _Aziraphale reminds himself again and again like a mantra. 

He forces himself to hope that It might be different,_ but they are so fragile in comparison_ and Eve is _already pregnant. _

_ The very first child _...

The thought of that first child and the kind of world it was to grow up in was almost overwhelming,

He gives Adam the sword- the _flaming angel-killing_ sword that would become the birth of War without a thought.

“Please take it. Keep Eve and the baby safe.” _ Pleasepleaseplease. _

Adam does. But as he leaves, Aziraphale is shaking. 

The desperation he felt slowly replacing itself with anxiety, _Did I do the right thing? Did I make the Fall worse? _

It is overwhelming.

Then the demon is there. Form twisting and breaking until it is in a person's shape. There is only a brief trill of panic because _this was the demon he was supposed to have fought_\- and now here he was without any meaningful weapon.

God have mercy on his idiot soul.

The thing was though-

Demons were _ supposed _ to be horrid creatures who wouldn't hesitate to rip off his wings if given half a chance. And they were _ supposed _ to be liars and full of malice.

Only this demon didn’t really look all that menacing.

“That went down like a lead balloon,” the creature tries to say around a mouth that was used to being chalked full of venomous fangs, and now was trying hard to sort out what to do with all the free space

Aziraphale just stares dumbfounded at the casual nature of it all. The clumsily offered comfort.

“W-What?’

“I said-“ The demon tries again, amidst the gathering storm clouds. There isn’t even any hate in the air, just a careful and closed off kind of sadness.

They talk, and it’s_ pleasant _ to the point where Aziraphale wants to scream because he hasn’t had a nice conversation since the end of the War. Now here he is- having one with the _enemy, _while Adam kills the first animal. While he awaits a final judgment for his crimes.

It's absurd. 

“I don’t know what’s so bad about knowing right from wrong.” The demon, who introduces himself as Crawley, confesses, “Why not put the tree on the moon?” 

“Well it must be bad- If _ you _ did it.” Aziraphale points out and perhaps that was a bit too much. 

There is silence and a frown.

“You had a flaming sssword, didn’t you?” And here it is- the moment of betrayal.

_Are you defenseless? Can I hurt you? _

“I-! gave it away!” And now its Aziraphale’s turn to confess a crime. _ It was important, right? _To ask forgiveness before death.

After the words are out of him, he is left in abject horror because _ why would he tell a demon? Why would he willingly make his adversary's job easier? _

But he can’t help it, and maybe he deserves the discorporation he is going to get.

The demon just looks at him in shock and pleasant surprise. 

It was probably a trick of the mind, but it that moment Aziraphale could have sworn he felt the warm tug of love and hope sweep over him.

_ She was right you are special! _Aziraphale blinks at the foreign thought.

"Funny if we both got it wrong, eh?” Crawley says after a moment, “Funny if I did the good thing and you did the bad one, eh?" 

"Not really," said Aziraphale, but the panic is reseeding and before he can even think it through- his wings are shielding his new acquaintance from the first rains. 

They are standing so close together now- it must be the closest an angel and a demon have been since the War. Maybe ever.

They are _so close_ Aziraphale can feel the ichor pumping through both their bodies.

_Lub dub, lub dub._

It’s almost like a human heart beat- twin souls both happy to be alive despite the thunder crashing overhead. 

"Hey, what's your name?"  
  


* * *

  
6000 Thousand years from now, in a darling dessert cafe by the water, the Serpent of Eden will turn to his angel and say: 

“You know, I had hoped you would kill me.”

“What?” Aziraphale chokes on his chocolate cake, fork catering back to his plate with an undignified sound.

And here it is- the missing puzzle piece, finally found.

“What- today?”

“No, back in the garden.” 

“What?” Aziraphale repeats, panic rising. _ Where was this coming from? _

Crowley had mentioned this before, or rather Aziraphale had deduced that he suffered from suicidal iteration, but never had the angel imagined that Crowley had believed in the absolute certainty of death at Aziraphale's hands. The utter extinction that came with a suicide-by-angel.

It was alarmingly jarring.

“I just caused the fall of man. Y'know-” Crowley shrugs, “Ssseems like the kind of thing one should die for." 

And _oh._

For it_ was_ a world of suffering Adam and Eve had been cast into. War, Famine, Plague, and Death awaited them at every turn. Eating up their children and the lightness in their souls like hungry hell hounds.

But they persisted. The world became _something_\- and it wasn’t the sterility of heaven nor the churning mass of bleakness that was hell. It was entirely transformative and hopelessly _alive_. 

_Like a flame._

Crowley had helped light a spark for humanity and wanted to die for that.

Absurdly, Aziraphale looked down at his plate, staring his cake. _There was no cake in the garden. _

He blinked.

"Would you do it again?" Aziraphale finds himself saying, understanding that it was time for one last confession.

"Do what?" Avert the Apocalypse? Probably not, it was an awful lot of work."

"No." Aziraphale stifles a fond chuckle, " I mean, would you give Eve the apple again?"

"I didn't exactly hand it to her, mate, considering I didn't even have hands at the time." 

"I mean-" Aziraphale tries again, trying to be as gentle as possible, "Would you eat the apple with Eve... again?"

"H-how do you know about that?" Crowley practically yips in surprise. 

Aziraphale shrugs. 

"It caused so many horrible things..." Crowley tries to over-explain, but Aziraphale shushes him.

"Just answer the question, dear."

"I-I would." A resolute twang enters Crowley's voice, as if he has been waiting to say these words for a long time. "I would."

"So would I." Aziraphale confesses, laughing a little more at Crowley's confused face. 

The angel very much considered himself a scholar, so he knew that some theologians speak of _two_ trees. 

The Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. One represents _the Fall _and _Free Will._ While the other: unending vitality- living forever in God’s grace. No death, no pain, but no true existence either- 

_No cake._

Many of those scholars debate whether or not they are the _same tree_.

Aziraphale does not have to guess. Free will _ is _ life, everything else is just being a _tool. _

And they were both quiet done with that, _Thank you very much.  
  
_"When-B-but?... How?" Crowley tries to string together his thoughts together but fails.  
  
“Well.” Aziraphale rubbed at his face trying to pick out his words carefully, “Someone once asked me what’s so bad about knowing right from wrong...”

Crowley grew very still. 

“Can’t say I could ever come up with a better argument than, nothing- _nothing at all_.” 

And then, because he could, he took one of his demon's hands. Content that they were together and that after choosing death so many times, both he and his demon were finally free enough to pick life.

"I'm glad you are alive." he says.

"I'm glad we're alive." Crowley corrects but smiles shyly nonetheless, "And I'm glad we have the world." 

And as if to prove this point he summons two crystalline glasses filled with wine.

"Here is to not burning it down!" They cheers together, their cups clinking over a hale and whole skyline. 


End file.
